(A sermon for John 20:19-31 Presented at Christ Christ, Bordentown, NJ, April 6-7, 2024)

If you were fortunate to join us a couple of weeks ago during our Gospel & Coffee series, you would’ve heard how we started our discussion about how Jesus couldn’t preach in his hometown and how 40 minutes later into that discussion, we ended on the topic of miracles.

Father Matt then asked us two questions about miracles. 1) Who believes in miracles? And_2) Who expects miracles to happen? _

And then, he defined miracles as “God putting things back to how they’re supposed to be anyway”. I’ll say that again _ miracles are “God putting things back to how they’re supposed to be anyway”.

In our group, I begrudged this openly until someone asked me if I was looking for a threshold as to when a miracle happens, and I said, I think so.

And just as I said that, I realized by that definition, there could be no threshold. Miracles would be happening every day, all day long, most of them hidden from the naked eye. Thus, there could only be an infinite possibility to the number of miracles occurring all around me. And because I can’t always see them, I must have an all-encompassing faith that God is putting things back to how they’re supposed to be, all the time.

Keep in mind, I said God was putting things back to how they’re supposed to be. I didn’t say He was setting things right. Because right is how we want things to be. For example, I think it would be right if there was no corruption, lies or murder. And from there I have a whole list of things that I think should be right, as I’m sure each of you have your own personal lists.

Right is how we want things to be. Miracles are how God knows they are supposed to be. To reconcile this, God gave humans the ability to have faith. So when things are not right by our standard, we still know and feel deep down that God loves us and has our best interest.

And if we’re looking and we’re lucky, we’ll see a miracle happen right in front of our eyes. Something that will solidify, or recharge our faith, or remind us even in our darkest hours of doubt that He exists and loves us.

Mother Mary is the patron saint of humans and comes to us in our darkest hour of doubt. But it’s our patron saints of architects, St. Thomas the Apostle who is saddled with a label of being the ultimate doubter, the one who understands doubt very well.

Thomas may be famous for being the penultimate doubter. But he’s our great example of wanting things to be right and then being shown a miracle.

Thomas is cited as a dedicated and quick follower of Jesus, and when Jesus told Thomas that He was “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, Thomas didn’t turn around and say, “yeah right”. He was not known in the scriptures for being a curmudgeonly skeptic.

But still, at one point, the resurrected Jesus appears to just eleven of the apostles while Thomas was not there. They tell Thomas what they’d seen, and Thomas says that cannot be right and it won’t be right until he sees it and feels it for himself. Jesus returns and lets Thomas experience the resurrection in a very tactile way, and to see and feel the miracle of the resurrection … to put things back to how they’re supposed to be anyway so that Thomas would return to his ministry and spread the Gospel, which would take him as far away as India.

The thing that I like about this Gospel is Jesus came back for Thomas. Whereas He could have avoided Thomas altogether.

But he wanted Thomas to be the one to question him and make a big deal about it, so the story of the miracle of the resurrection could have a protagonist and live on in artful depictions and human characterization (a.k.a. A doubting Thomas).

This was God putting Thomas back to how he was supposed to be, a dedicated and quick follower of Jesus, who believed that Jesus was the Way, the Truth, and the Life _ and now becoming the model of doubt for us.

For St. Thomas, he may not have viewed this as right. But it was the way it was supposed to be.

Imagine the faith you have, and being saddled with a cause, or an expectation, or a task that you didn’t see as yours to have. Something to you that you think isn’t right, but it is the way things are. You have the faith that God gave you to reconcile these two things.

And we have Thomas’ story which is our story. This is our story of following faithfully, and when we are in our moments of doubt, there are still miracles all around us.

It may not be easy, and you may be riddled with doubt, and you may be waiting for a sign as to why or how. But have faith that beyond your immediate comprehension, God is putting things back to how they’re supposed to be anyway. Unfortunately, we don’t always get the gratification that Thomas experienced. But know that the answer is there_ and may that keep you comforted until you know the reason or witness the miracle first-hand.

As Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Amen